Creative Biolabs is a leading service provider in the field of antifungal drug discovery. We have a professional expert team with extensive experience and advance technology platforms to help global customers develop novel drugs against Histoplasma capsulatum. Our service portfolio includes target identification and validation, Hit identification, Hit to lead, Lead optimization, and IND enabling.
What is the Acute Pulmonary Histoplasmosis?
Acute pulmonary histoplasmosis is one of the rare clinical presentations of histoplasmosis that is caused by the dimorphic fungus, H. capsulatum. It tends to be a self-limited disease. This disease is most commonly asymptomatic, but even cases of the symptomatic disease usually do not require treatment. Symptoms are usually manifested as a flu-like disease characterized by high-grade fever, headache, weakness, chest pain, and dry cough. When an imaging examination is performed, chest radiographs of patients may show patchy pneumonia involving one or more lobes with adenopathy of the mediastinum or hilum. In some cases, chest radiographs often reveal diffuse reticulonodular infiltrates and mediastinal lymphadenopathy. Besides, acute pulmonary histoplasmosis may occasionally lead to adult respiratory distress syndrome or disseminated histoplasmosis.
Diagnosis
Currently, diagnosis of histoplasmosis is mainly based on clinical, radiological and epidemiological aspects. The laboratory tests include culture, fungal detection in stained smears or tissue sections, and the detection of both antibodies and antigens. Now serological tests are the rapid and sensitive methods for histoplasmosis diagnosis. Immunodiffusion assay based on H. capsulatum antibodies is frequently used in immunocompetent individuals with histoplasmosis. A study has been shown that serological assay is an effective method for diagnosing acute pulmonary histoplasmosis, mainly in cases with absence of H. capsulatum yeast form in direct examination. Besides testing for antigenemia, antigenuria, and antibodies using the complement fixation test provides a sensitive, noninvasive strategy for diagnosis of acute pulmonary histoplasmosis.
Fig.1 (A) Chest radiograph and (B) computed tomographic scan of a 21-year-old woman with a three-week history of shortness of breath and dry cough following a crop-planting trip to El Salvador. Both images show symmetrically distributed nodules consistent with acute histoplasmosis. (Joe, 2011)
Treatments
Acute pulmonary histoplasmosis is usually a self-limited disease that does not require specific drug therapy. However, during the primary infection, patients occasionally appear seriously ill, and drug therapy may seem to be indicated. According to the Clinical Practice Guidelines for the Management of Patients with Histoplasmosis (2007 Update by the Infectious Diseases Society of America), the treatment of moderately severe to severe acute pulmonary histoplasmosis has three choices.
Antifungal Drug Development at Creative Biolabs
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Reference
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